Description: Cartoon, ‘Highbury Grove in 1846’, satirising the geological and palaeontological activities of James Scott Bowerbank, who lived at 3 Highbury Grove, Islington.

James Scott Bowerbank was born in Bishopsgate, London. Although engaged with running his family’s distillery company, Bowerbank & Co, he still had time for scientific research and in his early years astronomy and natural history, especially botany, engaged much of his attention. Bowerbank became an enthusiastic worker at the microscope, studying the structure of shells, corals, moss agates and flints. He also formed an extensive geological and natural history collection (around 100,000 specimens) and would hold an ‘open house’ on Monday evenings at his home in Park Street, Islington and from 1846 at Highbury Grove, for those who wished to visit his museum and microscopes.